Douglas - The First Cyber Death Extravaganza!

We begin thistale with our hero, our godTobit Fortranstudiously studying thecontents of his Winnie the Pooh bubble bath soap. Tobit is strong,healthy, and delightful to all his friends, but it is all a lie.Tobit is really sad. In less than two weeks time he will die infront of millions of Web surfers during the first live,interactive, Cyber Death.

He should be happy; his death will bring his family lots of fortuneand fame, but alas, he was not.

But it would be callously unfair to allow you, the reader, furtherinto this scene of sadness, which will be most grandiose, withoutteasing your eyes with the story, or rather the incrediblebeginnings, of this hero, this being, thisTobit Fortran.

His beginnings are most fortunate (I should say his life has been asequence of most fortunate happenings, but I will stick to thebeginnings, which are, as you perhaps have guessed, where it allbegan). For you see, at the moment of our heros birth, as his headbegan to push its way out the birth canal, the gods inserted afloppy disk snuggly between his powered white butt cheeks anddeclared baby Tobit a god. This floppy disk was not like any normalfloppyit was, of course, grander than that. This floppy (it was ablue 3.5, 1.44 MB with the initials www lightly engraved in blackon the back) contained the abstract reasoning that would one day becalled the World Wide Web.

Now Tobits parents, brilliant but no gods themselves, knew thattheir new baby boy was differentunique, is how they would oftendescribe him. So different, or unique if you will, that they knewthe butt cheek disk had to be kept secret from everyone, includingour hero himself. Computers had not yet found refuge in the averageAmerican home, and the disk baffled them. Some nights, after Tobithad been laid to rest, they would stare at the disk, doing whateverthey could to reassure each other that their son was not afreakhis dad, with his large-framed black glasses, would carefullyanalyze the disk lying in the palm of his hand for hours at a time,never able to come to any conclusion. Then one day, seeing no hopein sight, he declared to his adoring wife that they must hide thedisk and never tell anyone of it. So it was that this disk, whichheld the key to our survival, was kept in the Fortrans dining roomunder a mistakenly printed plate that commemorated the landing ofthe Apollo 13 lunar module on the moon. Some years later, afterTobits father died, Tobits mother met a man who offered to buythe disk for five dollars in pennies at a garage sale. That man wasTim Spiderman Berners-Lee, and he claimed in 1989 to haveinvented the Weball from information he found on a disk that oncerested snuggly between Tobits butt cheeks. Our heros mother diedthe day of his high school prom of unknown causes, and the secretof the disk has been safely kept with Berners-Lee (who never knewof the disks earliest origins).

Tobits parents believed that getting rid of the butt cheek diskwould let Tobit grow to be a normal boy. But destiny was, as italways is, on our heros side.

And so, with a horrible transition, we arrive back into presenttense, where Tobit says to the bottle of Winnie the Pooh bubblebath, Am ITobitready for death. It is not a question, it is nota statement. Words roll from Tobits lips like MP3s from a fiberoptic cable, and he doesnt know what to do with them. With soap inhis eyes, he watches bubbles go down the drain, and continues hispsychological fall, crying out to the Honey Bear shampoo, Someoneplease help me.

When he wipes the soap from his eyes, a little CD-ROM-size man withno shirt, a hairy chest, bony pink legs, a blue tie (despite havingno shirt), and a cigar hanging carelessly from his mouth isstanding near the drain. He has binary numbers tattooed on hisright arm, and his toenails and fingernails are painted to looklike microchips. His hair, Mohawk cut, has the sharp shape ofmicrochip pins. He is wearing black thong underwear with a fivedollar bill sticking halfway out, and his eyes look like mouseballs with little green dots. He sits on a bar of soap and crosseshis legs.

Our hero first thinks it is his shampoo bottle until it moves.Who are you? Tobit asks.

Im Thomas WatsonI made IBM big. Im your muse. He coughs asmokers cough, wiggles his ears, while clearing his throat, andburps a burp that sounds like a computer booting up.

Tobit looks in blank disbelief at Watsons hairy chest, feeling asurreal attraction for him.

Watson yawns. So you want my help or what?

Sure.

I dont give BJs, I dont give money, you cant put me in adiaper and make me dance, and you cant tickle my tummycute as itmay be. I give advice and inspiration. He adjusts his thong. Sowhat can I do you for?

Tobit thinks. Im supposed to die in two weeks and broadcast mydeath and funeral on the Web.

Two weeks?

Two weeks.

Two weeks is very short.

Very, our hero agrees. Thats why Im worried.

I see. Well, have you thought of auctioning your body parts oneBbay? The muse has just come back from a yearlong sabbatical (hedid research on the silverwood fern) and has failed to keep currenton such important events. He has read only the half-page quicksheet the agency gave him, which explains that Tobit needs to diefor humanities sake.

Of coursebut thats not my problem.

Watson grows impatient. Well, whats your problem then?

The thing isI dont know if I should do it.

Oh. Watson thinks. That is a problem. Youd lose a lot of money,thats for sure.

Tobit nods. Its just that nothing seems to be going right. Mywife still doesnt have a new husband; two of the sponsors havebacked out; the opposition grows more brutal each day. I worryabout life after death. And I dont know why it has to be me. Imjust not sure that Im ready for death or even if death is readyfor me. This statement doesnt make Tobit a weak man; hes juststressedyou would be too.

Let me tell you first off that you dont have to worry about anafterlife, because I can testify first hand that there is ahell.

This comforts Tobit, and he sits on the showers floor, feelingmore relaxed. He looks down on his muse adoringly.

And second, think of the children, Tobit. Millions of childrenhave been waiting over a year for you to die.

I know. Its just

He jumps off the bar of soap and nearly slips, then roars loudly,Tobit, youre a goddid you know that?

A god? Reallyme? Our hero is surprised. Once, as a child, he hadsuspected that he might be a god, but this sense of his immortalstate had disappeared with his powers. He has always seen himselfas a simpleton until now. This is truly a special moment for ourhero that a picture would better expressthis: :-) is the best Ican do. Sorry, Im not very good at art.

Sure thing. And its your duty as a god to do this.

A god?

A god.

Wow.

Can I continue my inspiration?

Yeahof course.

Every day, Tobit, kidsyoung kidsgo to the Web for answers.They search even when they know theyll find no answers. They donthave warsno wars they can believe in, that is. And they dont haveany causes. All they have is the net. And they need you. Every timethey search for movies or MP3s, its you theyre really searchingfor. They need you to be their cause. They need you to die for theone thing in their lives that they believe in. You Tobityou. Youwill fill their emptiness and be their hope. Listentheyre seekingyou right now through their message board prayers. He motionsTobit to be quiet and puts his hand on his ear. Do you hearthem?